@Thread

... seriously though, I'm sure there are eventualities where having the ability to design our own chips will work out to be a good option to fall back on even if it is just to have an NG Vampire type PPC system in 15 years

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Quote:

BigD wrote: @Thread ... seriously though, I'm sure there are eventualities where having the ability to design our own chips will work out to be a good option to fall back on even if it is just to have an NG Vampire type PPC system in 15 years

But for what? Current x64 processors can emulate ppcs way faster then ppc reimplented in fpga.

Once fpga ppc will have reached G4 level, software emulation will be rather at Power8 level or so...

Just do the math and conclude whether fpga ppc makes any sense for Amigaish systems...

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@Zylesea

Software emulation is really really slow, I think FPGA is faster and more precise,

JIT compilers can some time give a choppy experience, it's not lag free.
in extermine places the JIT cache can get flushed way too often. so JIT compiler has to generate code way too often.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

Software emulation is really really slow, I think FPGA is faster and more precise,

While JIT might no tbe perfect, you are comparing that translation to host-native code to an FPGA. FPGAs are improving, but you are not going to get a softcore in an FPGA to compete with genuine PPC chips of today. 1.8GHz CPU from NXP is not going to be matched by any FPGA softcore. IBM Power9 will not even see a softcore's performance in its dust. FPGAs are cool, and 68K family is a good candidate architecture as those real chips topped out in the 50-66MH range, and yea some FPGAs with good RTL can meet or beat that. But modern PPCs are way beyond what an FPGA can keep up with. Maybe something in the CyperstormPPC range of performance, maybe not. But that is quite old and obsolete compared to PPC of today, T2080, p5020, or T4240, or a Raptor Blackbird Power9...

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Re:open source instruction sets
WebAssembly is also open source and can more easily be modified for our purpose than x86. Also, it statically translates so no need for a stupid JIT. Its only major faults are that it is little-endian specific and that it depends on either LLVM or CraneLift as its code generator.

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @Kronos Well look at another way; in 15 years we could have cheap G5 class FPGAs whatever happens! It's a good fall back foe when the bottom completely falls out of the PPC market!

Nope....

Fast (fake) PPCs are only an option if FPGAs get really faster not just bigger (in the same way that performance gains in x86 CPUs of the last few years were mostly due to adding more cores).

Then you would need someone to bother updating the SoftCore to run on and fully utilize those 2034 FPGAs and (someone else) making a board around them.

All for the 3 last AmigaNG holdouts....

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Compare the speed of WinUAE with ppc emulation to the probable speed of a ppc implementation on an average FPGA like used by the Vampire boards.

IIRC Pavlor did some benchmarking and reached quite usable results - around sam440 level on an average pc. I doubt a vamire class board will yield such performance.

I ilke FPGAs, really - but bot to just reimplement some general purpose cpu ISA....

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@billt

There _MIGHT_ be a way to reach early g3/g4 performance with FPGA. But I think even Amigans are willing to pay the price.

https://www.digikey.fi/products/en?keywords=XCVU095-2FFVA2104E

@billt

Quote:

obsolete compared to PPC of today, T2080, p5020, or T4240, or a Raptor Blackbird Power9...

if compare too speed, but lets say you like to build something tiny, you can stick all logic you need into FPGA + CPU, and have pocket sized AmigaOS4.1 compatible computer.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Wasn't there some obscure PPC PDA that was supposed to be supported by OS4 back in the early days?

Doubt you'll manage to beat that on anything with something FPGA.

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@Kronos

IIRC there were some photos floating around in the early 2000s from a pda study by ibm, hence not fpga driven but ppc (405 iirc). And of course there was the Sharp Zaurus for DE, but that was StrongARM driven.
Amiga history is rich of things....

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@ferrels

Quote:

Yes, Mona was/is crap. If it was any good, people would be using it. It's a failure.

As I recall, Project Moana was on a demo disc that was stolen, which pissed off the owner no end and so the entire project was revoked. So, any quality of the Mac OS4 port, is irrelevant really because it had no official release. It was pirated onto torrents and some videos released. I never saw it live and it ran on obscure Mac hardware. When I say obscure I mean a Mac Mini, which is obscure when you only have PowerBooks lying around, so in effect useless to me.

In any case it had the same problem as MorphOS does now, It was made for old second hand computers. Seriously, who wants to run OS4 (or MOS for that matter) on an old computer? No one! But because there is no affordable new PPC hardware today, nor does the AmigaOne today still not compare with hardware almost 15 years old, people are forced to buy old Macs!

It would be like only buying old cars because you needed a CD player, which was removed from newer cars, then putting up with all the old crap and problems an old car gives. Project Moana was a ridiculous idea really, but it came out of desperation of no new affordable hardware. Things haven't changed! After all this time we are still putting up with the same old crap.

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: Seriously, who wants to run OS4 (or MOS for that matter) on an old computer? No one!

Using als Macs is dealing with reality. The hardware is cheap and reliable and as long as the OS requires a ppc a very pragmatic approach. Anyway for OS4 it's too late and MorphOS has the vague hope for an ISA switch.
Probably both OSes are doomed

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

if compare too speed, but lets say you like to build something tiny, you can stick all logic you need into FPGA + CPU, and have pocket sized AmigaOS4.1 compatible computer.

And finally the first portable OS4 laptop will be here. Or pockettop. All running in hardware simuation.

@Zylesea

My old Macs aren't reliable anymore. But they are laptops and not desktops. Would be funny though if there was an arch switch and all people wanted to do was run the OS on old computers. That was always the risk with x86. Hey it's on x86 now, let's see if it runs on my old crappy x86 PC. In the past I saw people salvage old PC parts for their new AmigaOne board. Not for my OS4 machines, they only get new hardware.

@Hypex

Maybe its luck, but my mac mini and powerbook are both purring like a kitten.

Changed hdd in time (before they fail) and am cleaning up the machines about once a year. the powerbook still does aboz 2.5 hours on battery (depends on load).

No complaints on reliability and quality on that hardware.

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...zzz…

Fast PPC emulators have been around for years...

https://dolphin-emu.org/
http://cemu.info/

@Lou

Fast doesn´t mean compatible enough. Eg. OS4 requires somewhat complete MMU emulation.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

Software emulation is really really slow, I think FPGA is faster and more precise,

Precise for what?

Software emulation of CPU is a lot faster, it's emulation of chipset that can be slow depending on what you throw at the emulator, and emulating both CPU and chipset in software can be really slow. Software emulation of CPU and chipset implemented in FPGA should be quite optimal.

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@Zylesea

I have a few lying around here. Most are G4s. Unfortunately, I drove over one. LOL. It still worked but the cracked screen rendered it unusable. I transferred it to another but the battery is gone now. Somehow I gave a good battery away while keeping the bad one, so a friend told me, but when I tested it didn't seem too good to me. My best one is the 17 " widescreen, but it has an overheating issue, and keeps asking me me if I want to shut down if it doesn't freeze first. Funny that, a computer freezing, because it over heated. Haha. But, when using their default OSX, even with the latest browser builds they are just too slow. Likely better with MOS and Linux. Haven't tested in a while.